Questions surround FBI suspect and one-time KC resident

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The FBI has a list of 21 "alleged subjects under investigation" in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Nineteen are the dead hijackers.

Of the two others, one is Khalid S.S. Al Draibi, a 32-year-old cab driver who took flight classes in Kansas City earlier this year.

When he was stopped by police in Virginia about 13 hours after the attacks, he said he was on his way to the Saudi Arabian Embassy to get a ticket to return home to Saudi Arabia, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia.

Al Draibi, who used the name Khalid Suleiman while in Kansas City, was driving on a bare wheel rim when he was pulled over in Manassas Park, Va., a town about 30 miles west of Washington. The other living man on the list, identified as Luis Martinez-Flores, 28, has an address in Falls Church, Va., about 10 miles from Washington.

The list accompanied a Sept. 17 letter from the U.S. Department of Justice to the Federal Reserve Bank. In the letter, the Justice Department asked that the Fed urge banks across the country to contact the FBI about any transactions they might have had with any of the 21 individuals.

"This matter is to be handled in as expeditious a manner as possible," the letter stated.

FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza in Kansas City declined Friday to comment on what role, if any, Al Draibi might have played in the attacks. Chris Murray, a spokesman for the FBI's field office in Washington, said he could not comment on the list of 21 names, which he said "was not meant to be released."

Al Draibi's lawyer, Drewry Hutcheson Jr., said Friday that his client had been stopped about 10 p.m. on Sept. 11, the day of the attacks -- not Sept. 12, as previously reported. The car he was driving was a white, 1991 Lincoln Town Car.

Al Draibi had left a Kansas City residence in June in an older Lincoln Town Car, according to a former roommate. Al Draibi changed a flat tire on that car before he left, the roommate said.

During the traffic stop, Al Draibi was told to pull into a nearby parking lot, said Hutcheson, a criminal defense lawyer who was appointed by the court to represent Al Draibi.

He presented a Virginia driver's license with the name Khalid S.S. Aldiribi and a Richmond, Va., address, according to the affidavit. The license had been issued the day before. The address is for a gas station.

When asked his birth date, he gave one different from that on his Virginia license.

Authorities looking in his car found a flight instruction manual from Indigo Aviation, a now-defunct company that had operated at Kansas City's Downtown Airport until June.

Toward midnight, FBI agents arrived and questioned him about his immigration and citizenship status, Hutcheson said.

According to the affidavit, Al Draibi said he had been in the United States for about three years. He said that he frequently traveled between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and that he had received instruction as a pilot while living in Egypt.

Al Draibi later was charged with falsely saying he was a U.S. citizen, the lawyer said. After a preliminary hearing, he was ordered detained.

Al Draibi claims it was a misunderstanding, that he was trying to say he was legally in this country, Hutcheson said. Everyone agrees that he later told the officials that he is a citizen of Saudi Arabia, "which, my understanding is, he is," the attorney said.

The lawyer also said that an Immigration and Naturalization Service detainer previously had been lodged against his client, although he wasn't sure why. Possibly his visa had expired, "but I don't know," Hutcheson said.

In some of his driver's license applications, Al Draibi has listed Yemen as his home, and he told people in Kansas City that he was from Yemen.

Al Draibi says he doesn't know why he's on the FBI list, Hutcheson said. He said his client told him he didn't know Luis Martinez-Flores or any of the persons on the list.

Hutcheson said that at his request, the FBI currently is not questioning Al Draibi.

"But we may in fact decide to sit down shortly and talk with them," he said.

Hutcheson said he had spoken Friday afternoon with the U.S. attorney about "meeting soon so we can assuage their concerns about his being involved with this attack."

A 'gut feeling'

Those who watched Al Draibi fly said he could barely keep a plane in the air.

He wasn't much better driving a car.

Police Chief Bryan McCraw of Guin, Ala., has no trouble recalling his encounter with Al Draibi on Sept. 3.

He was belligerent, and he was in a hurry on Labor Day.

McCraw pulled over Al Draibi's white Lincoln Town Car for running a red light in his northwest Alabama town. He was also charged with driving with no insurance. The car was registered in Alabama, and the driver had a Colorado driver's license in the name of Khalid Ss Aldiribi, according to McCraw.

"He was adamant that I couldn't write him two tickets at once," McCraw recalls. "He was wrong."

An 18-year law enforcement veteran, McCraw said he had a "gut feeling" that made him suspicious of the man.

"But I didn't know what it was," he said. "I didn't have reason to do anything other than what I did."

Three days after the terrorist attack, McCraw said he was contacted by FBI agents who told him that Al Draibi was being held in the Washington area.

The citations that McCraw wrote Sept. 3 were in the car.

Aldiribi is only one of the names Al Draibi has used. He has also called himself Khalid S. Suleiman, Khalid Salih Suleiman-Aldrib, Khali Aldraibi, Khalid S. Aldribi, Khaled Aldribi, Khaleribi Aldribi, Khalid Suleimin and Khalid Salih Suleimen.

On one FBI list of about 150 names -- people about whom authorities are seeking more information -- he appears as Khalid Aldribi.

The affidavit filed in Virginia lists him as "Khalid S.S. Al Draibi, aka Kahlid S.S. Aldiribi, aka Khalid Salih Suleiman," which was the name he used in Kansas City.

The FBI's short list also shows a Social Security number and birth date -- in December 1968 -- that matches those he used in Kansas City.

But neither that Social Security number nor another he has used appears to be his own. According to a national credit-check database, one of the numbers belongs to a Pennsylvania woman, the other to an 84-year-old woman in Alabama.

Before moving to the Kansas City area, he lived in Birmingham, Ala., at 1320 N. 25th St. J -- a real address. But when he applied for a Tennessee driver's license, he listed a similar address in Nashville -- 1320 25th Ave. North -- that does not exist.

At one address he used in Kansas City, in the 3700 block of Highland Avenue, neighbors said four men who identified themselves as FBI agents surrounded a house with guns drawn Sunday afternoon. But neighbors said they didn't remember Al Draibi ever living there.

A license binge

Last year, Al Draibi went on a driver's license binge. He acquired licenses from several states, including Missouri, in a matter of weeks. But he picked up even more tickets than licenses, most of which were suspended in short order.

He acquired a license in Tennessee on April 24, 2000; in Oregon on May 31, 2000; and in Missouri on June 14, 2000. He also had driver's licenses from Louisiana and Colorado.

Al Draibi turned in a Louisiana license to obtain his Tennessee license, said Dana Keeton, public information officer for the Tennessee Department of Safety.

Three weeks later, he asked for a duplicate Tennessee license, Keeton said. She said Al Draibi's license was suspended in July 2000 because he had failed to pay citations for minor traffic violations accumulated since February of that year. The last traffic violation recorded on his Tennessee license was in June 2000.

While in Tennessee, Al Draibi applied for a certificate to drive a taxi in Nashville.

When shown the picture from Al Draibi's Kansas City cab certificate, Fields said the photo matched what he had on record. The only difference, Fields said, is that Al Draibi had thin facial hair in his Nashville certificate.

When Al Draibi applied for his Oregon driver's license, he surrendered his Tennessee license, an Oregon state official said.

Al Draibi's license was suspended in October after he failed to appear on a minor traffic violation and failure to prove valid insurance in June 2000, the official said.

Al Draibi surrendered another Tennessee license to get his Missouri license. The Missouri license also was suspended after he failed to appear in court for minor traffic violations.

Before he took flight lessons in Kansas City and Johnson County, Al Draibi tried flying at Bessemer Aviation, near Birmingham, Ala.

Shawn Patterson, Bessemer's marketing director, said Al Draibi took lessons "for a few months in '98 and '99."

The only thing that stood out about him was his lack of flying skill, he said.